09/05/2024 - Over 55's at Bitterwell Lake - Silvers Only

With Hunstrete's Bridge Pool closed Dave Gillard has arranged for us to fish Bitterwell Lake for the rest of this year. Today's match was planned to be Carp and silvers however, the Carp were spawning which was a site to behold, didn't realise there were so many Carp in the lake.

At last some sunshine, been many months without it, giving us the feel good factor.

Drew peg 25 on the car park bank so would have sunshine all day. Found myself next to a first time acquaintance - "T-bone" which was interesting to say the least. I had a lot of reeds to my right which was a live with Carp thrashing away as they do. On two occasions felt the splashing.

Because of the numbers of Carp around me decided to just set up the waggler to fish maggot at 20 metres with a straight 7" Drake. The first hour went as planned catching Skimmers from 4 oz to 2 lb. Think I got carried away with the feed as the Carp arrived. So spent a couple of hours fishing all around the peg picking off the odd skimmer. The Carp were an absolute nightmare, being end peg on the match didn't help in this respect. The peg completely died and had cramp in legs so went for a walk around to Tim Ford who was catching some nice Roach short. The Carp had by now more or less stopped spawning and had a thought that perhaps the silvers had moved in for a spawn munch. So the last 45 minutes was spent on the short Ronnie rig. Did have a decent Ronnie and a good skimmer along with 4 more Carp taking my tally to 14 according to the empty hook racks.

Weighed 18 lb 4 oz for third in the match. As could be expected the weights were down due to the bright flat conditions and Carp spawning.

The match was won by Haydn Withers (pictured with his catch) from peg 23 which had won the last 3 matches with 21 lb 4 oz. Haydn caught on worm over mushy worm at 11.5 metres. Well done matey.

Runner up was matey Tim Ford (pictured) with 19 lb 7 oz. Tim caught short on maggot. His catch included some quality Roach and three small Tench. Well done matey.

John Smith's drawing arm again didn't fail him today, drawing the Carp peg!!

Back to the Ringer for a very welcome cold one, to finish a nice day all round.

This Jon Arthur issue for me is comparable to getting a red card and missing the angling equivalent to the FA cup. Simple.

Weigh Sheets: